Battle of alliances

The 11th parliamentary election is crucial for both the Mohajote, led by Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League, and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, led by Khaleda Zia, and its allies which had boycotted the previous election.

Members of the Jatiya Oikya Front, an opposition alliance, at a news conference confirming their participation in the upcoming parliamentary election in Dhaka on November 11.

Bangladesh is all set for the 11thparliamentary election on December 30. Unlike last time, when the nation’s second largest party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), and its Islamist allies, boycotted the election, this will be an “inclusive” one. In the election held on January 5, 2014, in as many as 153 seats in the 300-member Jatiya Sangsad candidates were elected unopposed. However, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina completed her second tenure without much trouble despite the efforts of the non-parliamentary opposition, the BNP and the Jamaat e-Islami, to oust her from power through street protests and violent means.

In fact, a deft political move by Sheikh Hasina to meet her arch rivals, discuss their demands and assure them of holding a credible election resulted in the opposition joining the electoral process. This attempt at dialogue, which once was thought to be impossible because of the government’s rigid stances, lowered political tensions substantially.

For the BNP, joining the electoral process was more than a political compulsion. The party could not gain anything by abstaining from the previous election. Moreover, the constriction of political space for the opposition and the party’s own inner contradictions made the BNP, led by former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, virtually irrelevant in the past five years. Refraining from the election this time too would have been suicidal.

One of the longstanding demands of the BNP and its allies was a neutral caretaker government, but the decision to participate in the elections without this demand being met and also at a time when Khaleda Zia is serving a jail term on corruption charges comes as a setback to them. However, there is a new-found enthusiasm among the opposition, with the BNP having successfully engineered a broad-based coalition, the Jatiya Oikya Front, led by Dr Kamal Hossain, one of the framers of the country’s Constitution. Dr Hossain, an internationally acclaimed jurist, was Foreign Minister in the post-independence government under Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. He has decided not to contest the elections.

After a complicated seat-sharing process, the BNP and the Oikya Front have fielded their candidates against the Mohajote (grand alliance) led by Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League. A few prominent freedom fighters of the country’s liberation war, including the 1971 war hero Kader Siddique and A.S.M. Abdur Rab, who served in Sheikh Hasina’s Cabinet in 1996, have joined the Oikya Front, posing a challenge to the Mohajote. Mahmudur Rahman Manna, a former organising secretary of the Awami League, is also a key planner in the Oikya Front and is contesting the election on the BNP symbol.

The notable inclusion in the Mohajote is a new alliance, the Jukta Front, led by former Bangladesh President and the BNP’s founding secretary general, Dr A.Q.M. Badrudouzza Chowdhury. The Jatiya Party, founded by former military ruler-turned-politician General H.M. Ershad, which played the role of a “friendly” opposition in the parliament in the past five years, has also fielded its candidates as a constituent of the Mohajote.

Significantly, a few months before the election, the BNP and the Jamaat e-Islami, in a political coup of sorts, brought into their fold many of their long-time political enemies who had either deserted or were expelled from the Awami League. Many of them are now contesting the election on the BNP’s symbol. The Jamaat e-Islami itself will not contest the election because of the Election Commission’s bar against it, but its candidates are in the fray under the banner of the Oikya Front.

It is expected that the jail term for Khaleda Zia and the subsequent rejection of her candidature by the Election Commission will have a dampening effect on the BNP. Besides, Tariq Rahman, the eldest son of Khaleda Zia and now the acting chairman of the party, has been in London since 2008 evading arrest following his conviction in money-laundering and corruption cases. However, Tariq still holds sway in the party and selected candidates for the BNP and the Oikya Front via Skype from London.

Under the election laws, some heavyweight candidates of the BNP and the Oikya Front have also been disqualified because they defaulted on bank loans and on other legal grounds. Despite such difficulties, the opposition coalition seems determined to challenge the Mohajote.

Opposition’s strength

Besides problems arising from seat-sharing among its partners, the Awami League faces the problem of rebels in the party and independent candidates, mostly aspirants for the ticket. Although the campaign trend suggests an advantageous position for the Mohajote, the challenge put up by the opposition combine cannot be underestimated. The BNP and the Jamaat, whose image had been tainted for being “anti-liberation”, are sure to gain significant mileage from the fact that quite a few heavyweight “secular, pro-liberation” politicians have come into their fold. Most of these leaders may lack organisational skills, but their joining hands with the BNP and the Jamaat is likely to create a long-term impact on Bangladesh’s politics. These leaders are being criticised for their “unethical compromise” of joining hands with the communal forces that had opposed Bangladesh’s independence from Pakistan. However, Oikya Front leaders claim that their unity is an umbrella for “restoring democracy” and the “end of misrule”.

The Left parties—the Communist Party of Bangladesh, the Bangladesher Sangabadi Dal and a few smaller groups—have formed their own coalition. However, their quest to see a national Left alternative may be too difficult under the current sociopolitical realities.

The election will be a crucial test for the continuity of the policies undertaken by Sheikh Hasina in the past ten years. It is a tough challenge for her to return to power with a fresh mandate. The opposition parties and the Oikya Front are vocal against the “partisan attitude” of the Election Commission and the absence of “a level playing field”. But the Mohajote and the Election Commission have refuted the charges.

Bangladesh’s civil society and the media are sharply polarised vis-a-vis two streams of politics. The Oikya Front has received the solid backing of that section of civil society which has been critical of the Sheikh Hasina government on issues of governance, lack of democratic space and corruption.

Anti-incumbency factors, too, are likely to hurt the ruling party alliance. The Awami League seeks a vote to ensure the continuity of its socio-economic policies, which, according to it, have brought commendable success for the country. The Mohajote wants to continue the foreign policies of the current dispensation which have seen bold and decisive actions by Sheikh Hasina in creating a new horizon in India-Bangladesh relations and in maintaining close ties with China and Saudi Arabia.

However, critics say the government’s development agenda has been in direct contrast with the ground realities. They are also critical of the regional cooperation that India and Bangladesh have mustered in the past 10 years. The opposition combine believes that if people are allowed to vote freely and fairly, they will reject the ruling alliance. The debates on the campaign trail are also about whether the landmark trial of war criminals of the liberation war, which the Sheikh Hasina government pursued braving both domestic and external adversaries, will continue.

The two governments under Sheikh Hasina are credited with ensuring the rapid digitalisation of the country, investments in electricity generation and the enhancement of vital social indicators. However, criticism has been rife about broader social factors being ignored in the process, as in the case of rule of law, freedom of expression, and protection of democratic norms.

Election observers

Deviating from its long-held practice, the European Union has decided not to send any observer for the election, but several groups from the United States will monitor it. India sees the election as Bangladesh’s “internal matter”. However, Indian diplomatic sources were quoted as saying by the local media that New Delhi would remain “uncompromising” on the question of the Jamaat.

Banking on its development successes and the secular, pro-liberation agenda that it has pursued in the past 10 years, the Awami League-led Mohajote seems confident about its victory. But the ground realities suggest that Election 2018 will be a crucial test for both sides.